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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024
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What about the 3rd man, who espouses his organization isn't an arbiter of information, and yet, repeatedly prevented Russian leaks from being published? 🤔
And with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where is wikileaks now?
Cozy Bear really appreciated having such a loyal publisher, I imagine.
This, to me, is less important than the fact that this woman is publicly talking about how someone can do a bad thing but still be a public good, something not talked about enough in a world where when someone does something bad, it makes people ignore everything else they're doing.
I have struggled with this a lot in recent years. For example, I grew up with Ender's Game as my favorite book. Orson Scott Card is a racist/misogynistic/etc POS, and it has tainted my view of his books. People are experiencing this with J. K. Rowling right now.
I like to think I can keep the artist separate from their art, but it's hard.
I dealt with that as a kid with Roald Dahl because he was super antisemitic, but he also wrote amazing children's books. I guess for me it depends on how much they put such ugliness into their work. Lovecraft, creative as he was, had no problem being racist in his writings and I just can't read them even though I love the mythos. Dahl didn't do that.
Card and Rowling are somewhat different cases because they didn't start by writing terrible things, but they got to the point that their ugly beliefs began to seep into their books.
Dahl is another great example. I loved his book as a kid, and still read them to my kid now.
Me too, but I couldn't get through Great Glass Elevator. I try my best to voice all the characters, and I couldn't get through the president's phone calls with China, even toned down.
The Rowling shift is a gut punch in particular for me because I also long admired her specifically. A single impoverished mother writing her drafts on napkins while taking the train to work. Her work for Amnesty International. Her fierce rejection of right-wing extremism and fascism...I remember saving her Harvard commence address as being the most powerful one I've ever heard. The road to hell is paved with good intentions? I don't know. Frustrating because INFJ-to-INFJ I relate to her personality type.
Meanwhile her books were incredibly impactful of my upbringing and my relationship with my mother as well.
Controversial though this may be I don't view her as some evil anti-Semitic trans-lynching nazi in lieu of her views. Misguided, sure, but in the aggregation of all she is I'm still struggling with the mixed bag of her character. Maybe that's my own cognitive dissonance; maybe it's hers.
Edit: Side-note, Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow were incredible books. I'm only heartbroken that the opportunity was missed to have Anton Yelchin cast as Ender in a better film adaptation we shall never see.
The worst part with Rowling is she just keeps doubling down, and directly uses her money and influence to make other peoples lives worse.
I was with you until you called her misguided. She is way beyond misguided at this point. She's gotten so hateful that even Elon Musk told her to tone down the anti-trans bigotry.
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/elon-musk-jk-rowling-trans-obsession-rcna151323
Sure, substitute whichever word you'd like in place of misguided. I'm not sure if that changes the rest of my points. Especially within the context of this entire thread discussing nuance and not painting people in black-and-white.
I wouldn't substitute any word in that case because there is absolutely no excusing her at this point. Her actions are indefensible. Love her books, fine, but she is a horrible, horrible person and her bigotry does not deserve to be excused by calling it misguided or anything else but bigotry. If she said about black people what she says about trans people, that wouldn't even be a consideration in terms of talking about her.
Well now I'm a little confused. Did I find a point of cognitive dissonance in you? In one breath you defend Assange under fire for sexual assault and to consider nuance, but this is too far?
And since when do we care what Elon Musk has to say? He called someone a pedophile, too, remember? Should we jump on the bandwagon with that just the same?
I am literally talking about separating someone from her work. I don't know how I could have been clearer on that point. But that doesn't mean what she says is in any way excusable or defensible. Bigotry is bigotry.
Okay I see what you're saying, I think. I went back to re-read your comment:
So your general perception of Assange is that he is an irredeemable rapist asshole who's done good work and you respect his accuser for distinguishing those in the same respect you view the character of Rowling as irredeemable and a hateful bigot who's done good work. Do I have that correct?
Yes. I feel that if someone has done good work, even if they are a horrible person, acknowledging the good work is the right thing to do. Even if they wrong you personally. That makes it much more difficult, but I still think it's something that needs to be done.
My former best friend ripped my mom off for drug money by lying about what he needed it for and is now in prison for possessing meth lab equipment. He's a horrible person in a lot of ways. But I will still acknowledge the good things he did as good things (he was always willing to give someone a place to stay if they needed it and for as long as they needed it, for example) even if he has done things I can't forgive him for.
I guess in my view, the bad has to far outweigh the good if you're going to ignore the good and I think that, while I also have a lot of criticisms about what he has done with Wikileaks, especially around the 2016 election, I also think that Wikileaks- at least when it began- did a lot of good. And credit does go to him for that despite anything else. His victim in the article seems to agree.
Fair enough. Thanks for the elaboration and discussion.
Exactly the same way I felt reading your comment when you inserted astrology for nerds into it!
How could you ruin your previous work so profoundly?
In what realm does a personality test compare to predicting the future with horoscopes and star patterns, lol?
I'd be happy to discuss because you don't seem particularly informed on this subject. Perhaps be a bit more humble? I find it kind of amusing how worked up this can get people. Did I ever tell YOU to subscribe to it? lol.
Now sure nobody should view such things as utterly conclusive or written in stone, but it was honestly incredibly eye-opening for me in terms of introspection. More helpful than therapy in my case. To each their own.
It's pseudoscience in both cases, saying you're so and so because your personality is INFJ has almost as little value as correlating to being a gemini. Now if you find some sense in those personality types, maybe that contains some lessons.
Well naturally, I think that's the entire point of such tests, is it not? Entertain me for a minute, please:
First of all, you would agree that you can aggregate clusters of people based on how each answer a variety of probing questions, right?
Naturally, one must say, "yes, of course."
To which the next question is, "So once you've arranged clusters of similar responses under banners, how can you interpret those results?"
Well once you actually pool a group of people into these boxes and see where these subsets are, you can then analyze these population subsets further, right? To which most would say, "of course. Scientists do this all the time."
.. And if those subsets are analyzed and their commonalities generalized, what would be the problem with that?
... To which any reasonable person would say, "Nothing, really, except for how that may impact edge-cases," which is fair.
Now those clusters coalesce and find community with each other and reflect, "Hey wow, yeah I can totally relate to that, too!" It's kind of remarkable to see.
The only substantive arguments that I've seen made -- and the only "debunking" aspects to this test revolve around veracity and validity -- which is understandably concerning. But let's unpack that: Do the results bear repeatability, and do what the results say reflect the reality of who that person is?
Edit: I should say there is legitimate concern that the overlap can lead to crossover into other categories quite easily.
This is of course difficult because a lot of people get some things wrong about said tests: These tests are not immutable. People are fluid; they can change. Moreover if you take the test when not at your emotional and cognitive baseline with average sleep, average temperament, and no major life events influencing this, then of course that will change from when these are not accounted for. Similarly, some people struggle to take the test honestly: They respond with whom they want to be as opposed to who they are. In this case, sometimes it's good to take the test side-by-side with a loved-one who knows you intimately and can see you from the outside-looking-in. Some answer candidly but get results they don't like. Reality contradicts who they want to be. So they get upset.
All of these are of course suggestive that it's not a one-size-fits-all test and should be taken with a grain of salt but the vast majority of criticism resides under user error and a misunderstanding of the test's objectives.
At this point I can only speak for myself, but it's a harmless test that impacts nobody else and it was deeply, emotionally revealing for me. I've truly never felt more understood in my whole life and my wife looked at it confirmed every piece of it while her own test reflected her to a T.
Now I'm a non-religious trained Engineer who pushes away superstition and things like astrology, balks at homeopathy and pseudoscience and broscience alike but I'm telling you, there's something worthwhile here, even if science hasn't sufficiently shined a light onto what.
Now if I missed anything, please, by all means.
Nope. I've taken that test a few times, got different results each time, same for a number of friends and colleagues. It's too vague, swings with mood and interpretation, and is wildly swayed by it's own popularity. It's about as accurate as a horoscope, and has as much to do with reality as a Hogwarts house (which, even in-universe, wasn't a reliable predictor of the character of a person).
Since your thesis is flawed, I didn't bother to do more than skim that wall of text, but what I saw also read like pseudo-scientific nonsense. You mentioned something about it "not being harmful"; Tell that to the people who - no shit - didn't get jobs in management or analytics because the sorting hat didn't like their 4-letter password.
Whoa whoa, you jumped to a conclusion before you even comprehended what I wrote. Never, nowhere, did I say your personality remained immutable. That would be silly to suggest to begin with. But rather those clusters are relative to that snapshot in time. If you took the time to slow down and read, that would've been readily apparent.
I took the test half a dozen times over the course of 2 years and got the same answer. As did my wife. Doesn't mean everyone will.
You're going to have to try again if that's your attempted gotcha, sorry.
You're jumping to a bit of a conclusion also; These differing results didn't happen of the course of years, or even months. They were separated mostly by weeks, and in some cases days. The test isn't reliable.
Also, I'm not trying to come up with a "gotcha". This isnt a debate. Best case is enough people inform you that these personality tests are malarkey that you do some self reflection. Worst case is that I wasted a bit of my time.
You're jumping to a bit of a conclusion also; These differing results didn't happen of the course of years, or even months. They were separated mostly by weeks, and in some cases days. The test isn't reliable.
Also, I'm not trying to come up with a "gotcha". This isnt a debate. Best case is enough people inform you that these personality tests are malarkey that you do some self reflection. Worst case is that I wasted a bit of my time.
Okay well thank you so much for your sincere concern. I'll spare your further time and wait for better arguments with all due respect.
I'm aware i'm cherry picking here.
They do, with strict guidelines about how they can strictly control the context to eliminate bias and gaming (as much as they can anyway).
I could very well be reading this incorrectly but are you saying that veracity and validity are known concerns and then follow that up with "Can we verify? Are the results useful?"
I wouldn't consider restating the questions that represent the known concerns as unpacking said concerns.
Genuine question, what would you consider to be the test's objectives ?
Thanks for the fair comment. Would you mind elaborating on "control the context to eliminate bias and gaming" under this situation?
To your second point, yeah I could've made that more clear. At that point in my comment I was still unpacking what veracity and validity could mean in the context of a personality test. For example, it's hard to discuss repeatability in the context of personality that can change under life circumstances. If you take the most reputable personality tests out there (and they're all with a grain of salt), they will of course be impacted if you take it, for example, the day after your mother dies. Or you are exhausted from an 18 hour shift. Or you just had a newborn child, etc. These are more extreme examples just to convey the idea. Naturally one can say, "well of course if you choose the same answers and your personality is consistent, then yes the test itself will be repeatable."
For the same reason people will say, "But (scientific) polls of elections aren't accurate!" it's because they view them as predictive and immutable when they, like personality tests, are explicit snapshots in time.
The more substantive question to me is: do the questions asked by this test sufficiently cover most aspects of one's personality? That's hard to say. Obviously the more questions asked, the more granular the results can become, so I'll grant that.
This relates to your final point: What would I consider to be the test's objectives? For me, it's an exercise in gleaning insight into one's own personality; to help with reflection and introspection. To identify your strengths and weaknesses. In some sense, to provide some identity. I can't tell you how I felt understood. I actually teared up while reading the analysis for the first time. As something of an outsider for much of my life it was like it filled in the missing pieces I long suspected and yet always doubted. Like I said I can't speak for what others got out of the test, but it was the best therapy I ever received. (And for context, I read every other generalized group to make sure it wasn't generalized astrological bullshit where every description could match every person, for which nothing came close).
For those who wish to try to get something out of these tests, I advise:
Take the test multiple times over weeks, months, years; see if you find a pattern or what comes up at your most neutral, baseline, normal, average state of mind on an average day in your life.
Ask yourself if it feels like this test is you, but also:
Ask close friends, loved-ones if they believe this is you (better yet, give them a control, then give them the actual results for you). Alternatively do it alongside your partner so you get external feedback.
Sure, apologies if you already know any of this.
As with other scientific fields, there are guidelines and processes in place to evaluate the structure and approach for research.
iirc you don't technically have to adhere to them, but it will certainly be a point of industry and peer criticism if you don't, sometimes leading to papers not being accepted for journals and other more esoteric consequences.
This is one of the reasons proper peer review is important.
A basic example would be picking from (or narrowing to) an appropriate subset of the population.
If you were trying to perform research with the goal of evaluating the population as a whole, running your experiment exclusively with women between the ages of 18-25 would immediately be picked up as a reason the results can't be trusted (in terms of the stated goal).
A slightly less obvious example (for certain kinds of experiments) would be sentence structure and unconscious bias through contextual information.
When wording questions and examples it is easy to introduce a bias in the tone and word choice, which can affect the outcome of the research.
A real world example of the unconscious bias aspect is hiring discrimination : https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/the-resume-bias-how-names-and-ethnicity-influence-employment-opportunities
A simplistic summary is that there is a bias (unconscious or otherwise) against people with "ethnic" sounding names on their resume.
There is, of course, more nuance to it than that, but still.
This is much less cut and dry because sometimes the bias is the thing being studied and forms a part of the test, which is why when creating these kinds of experiments the process is carefully evaluated and revised, hopefully by multiple people.
Another one you touched upon already is context, the time of day, life events, general disposition etc.
Good test design will try to account for as much of this as possible (though it's unlikely to remove it all entirely).
That's not always strictly true, quality is also important and there are diminishing returns on quantity, the length of a questionnaire can sometimes have it's own effect on the results for instance.
It sounds like this experience was/is of great use to you. I've heard similar things about ADHD and ASD diagnoses.
Finding your tribe/place sounds great.
What i would say is that people who don't have this level of resonance with the results could well see it less favourably than you.
That isn't necessarily because they performed the test (or interpreted the result) incorrectly, it could just mean less to them.
Read your comment twice and truly I appreciate the neutral tone and detailed explanations. Certainly food for thought. I do get wary about saying I found something in this test because I'm certainly cautious when reputable sources generally shoot it down. I hate the idea that I'm falling for some sort of pseudoscience and weigh that against (a) how it tangibly helped me, and (b) whether we simply haven't found the proper way to test its efficacy properly; for I do find psychology and psychometrics in itself to be both a bit less explored and less quantitative (or deterministic?) compared to say fields more deductive and rooted in mathematics like physics. I'm not a scientist or research analyst so I must yield to those who know more for the latter.
Thanks for the conversation.
No problem. Outside perspectives are usually interesting to explore.
Perhaps a different approach might help.
[ I will caveat the following with : i am not , in any way, qualified to give any psychological advice or medical suggestions, this is not that, it's just my personal opinion. ]
Rather than try and figure out if the test itself is flawed or not, look at the outcome instead.
Based on how you described it, it wasn't the specific methodology itself that was helpful to you.
You can take whatever positives you experienced and explore them completely independently.
Does it matter that you used a potentially flawed methodology to come to a useful conclusion about yourself ?
Well and honestly that's pretty much how I do look at it. I'm just painfully aware though how easy it is to fall for something you want to be true, or to be coaxed into a false narrative. No differently than how some people are more impressionable and vulnerable at various points in their lives. So I'm trying to balance that versus trying to have an honest take on how it helped me.
Dare I say, this is pretty much the problem with religious faith in my view — coming from a formerly religious family. Many will argue that if it isn't rooted in truth but still helps you, then is it okay? That's hard for me.
I had the same experience with Scott Card. I loved the Ender books, the books about his older brother trying to be a good person when he was a "bad child" really resonated with me.
I was so disappointed when I looked him up and saw how hateful he really was.
I was a big fan of the Belgariad growing up... that one is fucking rough.
Uuh what? What did Eddings do? (Genuine, I don't know)
Honestly, it's pretty fucking rough so I don't want to post it here - if you Google "Eddings abuse" you'll get the results.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Eddings
TL;DR: child abuse of their adopted children in the 1970's.
I had the same experience with Arthur C. Clarke.
He moved to Sri Lanka to dodge all the accusations of pedophilia. It was all hushed up. As was the custom at the time.
You can't, but in some cases the art stands for itself without the artist. Basically, you can separate the Art from an Artist, but not the Artist from the Art. (if that makes any sense...)
That's fair. That isn't where my own head is currently but I do appreciate nuance for once. People can be complicated, and I'm certain she knows the real Assange better than most.
"Oh, Andy Capp. You wife-beating drunk."
-- Homer Simpson
"Oh, Bobby Hull. You wife-beating drunk."
-- my take
I still see absolutely no reason to lock him up. Just because he's biased towards one side that doesn't make the crimes of the other side any better. Ideally, yes, he should publish everything. But that's not the case. And it's still irrelevant.
Yeah I'm not necessarily in disagreement there. Though I respect those whistle-blowers who are willing to be a martyr for a cause they believe in. Ellsberg faced justice head on, for example. Meanwhile Snowden fled to one of the most corrupt countries in the world with a vendetta against the USA, and Greenwald is now parroting Kremlin propaganda strangely. Assange is somewhere in the middle for me.
At the end of the day, Assange effectively did face justice and came out the other side, so I give credit.
I honestly don't condemn any whistleblower for running away from "justice". Because there is absolutely no justice in any of this.
Strictly speaking, he didn't. He ran out the clock on the statute of limitations for the all but one of the sexual assault charges in Sweden while in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and prosecutors said enough evidence was lost to time that they weren't going to be able to indict on the remaining charge.
https://www.reuters.com/article/world/sweden-drops-assange-rape-investigation-after-nearly-10-years-idUSKBN1XT1PW/
I mean what do you want him to leak? Everything is out there for everyone to see.
If you're saying this tongue-in-cheek to note that it's flatly obvious that Putin is a corrupt imperialist tyrant, true I agree. But there is always more damaging information to be revealed not just to the world but internally to the people of Russia within the echo-chamber. For instance, more on Putin's personal finances. More on Aleksandr Dugin, Putin's neo-nazi Rasputin, etc.
Did Assange ever have access to that information? I admittedly don't know the details but I don't tbink he was ever in that kind of position.
No idea, honestly. But historical precedent would suggest that he would ignore it even if he did.